Stanford University - Quad Yearbook (Palo Alto, CA)

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. A VICTORY MESSAGE ij.iriij sr.ikR joKu.iN THE great struggle has come to an end with the victory of right and might over aggression and injustice. Our loftiest purpose was to end war, once for all. This aim can be reached in two ways only, — by removing war-makers and war-incentives, whatever their nature, and by cultivating trust and cooperation among the nations of the earth. Stanford men and women the world over have done their part toward the achievement of the first of these world necessities ; they will not be found wanting in the work of reconstruction. Chief among war-makers throughout the ages have been the privi- leged groups who claimed ownership, body and soul, of the people under their sway. And of these the most dangerous because the most efifectively organized was the oligarchy which surrounded the King of Prussia. November 11, 1018, is the greatest day in modern history, the day of liberation, the day on which the mediaeval system of divinely- ordered tyrannies vanished forever. It marks the passing of the era in which civilized men, ruled from above, developed no more individual initiative in government than a flock of sheep. The old regime began in the ignorance and helplessness of the common people beset by poverty, hunger and war. It has endured through force, intrigue and super- stition from the dawn of society on to its final perfection and predestined downfall in the Bismarckian system of monarchial order. Under dynastic rule, with its Kultur or enforced discipline, no real political progress was possible. The goose-step is not the stride of civilization. Thus regimented, the individual finds himself submerged by the overwhelming state visibly represented by the hereditary ruler and by the sycophants and favorites, courtiers and courtesans he gathered around him. In this scheme the grandiose Supreme State was held to be a gigantic entity floating in a moral vacuum and enveloping its people as the heavens overarch the earth. This monstrous creation knew no code of morals. In its jirimal philosophy the King could E3 S a

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i E3 (Id 11(1 w roiiL;. Tliis dictum bccoiniiig ' soniewlial discredited, it took refuge in the equally mischievous notion that ' the State can do no wrong-. Claiming- perfection, and permanently stalled in the bogs of the Middle Ages, it was the perpetual obstacle to all social advance. The activities of the Supreme State take place behind the scenes, — tiie more secret, the more corrupt. There never was an autocratic government not rotten to the core. There could never be one, for the ery essence of absolutism consists in the exercise of unlimited power the people have never granted, by men they have never commissioned. And on the eleventh day of November last, the whole egregious system passed forever into the scrap-heap of history. Glory enough for one generation to have helped destroy the last great incubus of history! Glory enough for the Stanford men and women who in one way or another have contributed to that end ! In the trenches or on the seas, binding up the broken, feeding the hungr -. or whatever else it may be, one and all have done their part, each in his own degree. But the end is not yet. ' ictory is onl} ' a stepping-stone to the abolition of war. War to end war ' ' demands not only cooperation in the field but both cooperation and conciliation afterwards. Just as coordinated society is essential to the welfare of the individual man, so is a community of nations necessary to a wholesome world. And thus another great anniversary will follow close on the first, for on January twenty-fifth was formally adopted the principle of the League of Free Peoples. Whatever the limitations of the accepted draft or constitution, a world-league against violence and greed is imperatively demanded. Its efficiency will depend not on details of organization but rather on the spirit which pervades it. An agreement for conciliation and cooperation, once established, is bound to expand through its own innate force as well as through that Invaltv sure to he awakened by the demand of righteousness. Q S